Italy , engaged in difficult behind-the-scenes negotiations with Berlin and a tug-of-war with Madrid over Schengen , is facing another front: Switzerland . Bern is ready to send back the so-called "Dubliners" and, after nearly four years of embarrassment, has announced it will resume transfers to the peninsula.

"The first flights have been booked," Magdalena Baker, spokesperson for the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), confirmed to Swiss German television. She explained that the operation will begin at the end of August and that these are currently only isolated cases. The Swiss authorities have apparently agreed with the Italian authorities that the resumption will take place gradually: "It is in Switzerland's interest that the resumption be managed sustainably for both parties, so that the system functions sustainably and is not overloaded," Baker explained.

As for Bern, the first repatriations concern asylum seekers who arrived from Italy after June 12, Baker explained, emphasizing that no agreement has been reached with Italy that would exclude asylum seekers who arrived before that date. This is the crux of the negotiations between Rome and Berlin. Currently, according to Swiss authorities, 652 people could be sent back, news sufficient to rekindle controversy in Rome, with the Democratic Party and Azione parties on a war footing against the Meloni government's latest decisions on the migrant front.

According to Osvaldo Napoli of Azione, the suspension of Schengen after Ceuta "was intended as a show of strength towards Spain, but instead it has come back like a boomerang, and Italy finds itself exactly where it was a year ago, with Germany and Switzerland preparing to return the so-called Dubliners." Also harsh was Francesco Boccia, leader of the Democratic Party (PD) group in the Senate, who argued that Italy is now more isolated: Meloni's "populist" government "has transformed a crisis at Europe's external border into an internal crisis," exposing Rome to retaliation. Maurizio Gasparri, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, responded: "The Democratic Party's attacks on immigration must be rejected. The European left's policy on this issue is disastrous. The Spanish situation demonstrates this."